Explain this without God: Big tuna are warm-blooded!

Paul Greenburg, a secular journalist for the New York Times, ponders the inability of evolutionary thinking to account for the tuna’s brilliant body and behavior:

Even the most confirmed enemy of “intelligent design” theories can have a hard time imagining [much less providing forensic evidence for] the forebears of these great fish inching slowly down an epochs-long evolutionary course to become modern tuna. They seem like deus ex machina incarnate or, rather, machina ex deo—a machine from God. How else could a fish come into being with a weird slot, as hard and fixed as the landing-gear slot on an airplane, into which it retracts its dorsal fin to achieve faster speeds? How else could a fish develop a whole new way of swimming where a slim crescent of a tail, insignificant in size compared to most fish tails, vibrates at astronomical speed while the rest of the body slips forward with barely any bend, pitch, or roll? And how else would a fish appear within a phylum of otherwise cold-blooded animals that can redirect the heat that its muscles throw off back into its very flesh and raise its body temperature by as much as twenty degrees above ambient conditions? Yes, the biggest tuna are warm-blooded.¹

Tuna—what a magnificent (and nutritious) fish! The seaworthy body and behavior of every living tuna exhibit the design and manufacturing brilliance of He who commissioned “fishers of men.”

(excerpted from James J.S. Johnson, A Christmas Carol in Four-Part Harmony, Acts & Facts, December 2011, Institute for Creation Research)

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References (selected)

1. Greenberg, P. 2010. Four Fish, the Future of the Last Wild Food. New York: Penguin Books, 199-200.

Why send out Bibles if they bring people danger?

"If you are caught with a Bible in Iran, you may be rejected by your family and locked in a prison. In Algeria, you might be beaten by police. In North Korea, where we drop gospel tracts from balloons (see photos below), you would be executed."

"Readers sometimes ask Voice of the Martyrs why we distribute Bibles if it brings such danger to the recipients. The answer is found in the Bible itself In John 15:20, Jesus says, "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you."

"Those who ask for Bibles know the risks better than we do. Some have never had a Bible and may never have read the verse above. But when they do read it, the words ring true. And then they ask for more Bibles."

(excerpted from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, December 2011)

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Silly Road Signs

From bloggingthechurch: Have you ever noticed how silly some of the road signs are that we see on highways around the country?

For instance: FRESH OIL; LOOSE GRAVEL. The street or highway department sprays oil and tar on the road or shoulder, than they cover it with chat which sticks to the tar like flies on a no-pest strip. When this is done in town* (see explanation below), it seems everyone is upset and grumbles and gripes about it because it messes up our cars. On the highways in particular, in the right circumstances, it can be dangerous and wrecks can happen as cars slide around on the loose chat. The sign is warning us of a possible hazard ahead.

Or, DON’T DRIVE INTO SMOKE. January 1978 was my first experience on the Will Rogers Turnpike as I drove into Oklahoma. As I was heading toward Vinita, Oklahoma, I see these signs with a peculiar warning, “Don’t Drive Into Smoke.” I’m think, “What? What a stupid sign. This is a highway. Where would smoke be coming from on a highway?” My limited intelligence, experience, and imagination could not figure a good reason for the warning. When it was explained to me by an Okie, I finally understood. Sometimes, people burn off their fields near the highway and the highway department burns off the shoulders of the road and the smoke may roll onto the highway obscuring your vision. It could hide the danger of a slower or stopped truck or car. The sign is warning us of a possible hazard ahead.

Or my favorite, BRIDGE MAY ICE WHEN COLD. I’ve seen these signs mostly in Arkansas and Louisiana. The first time I saw one of these signs I began to imagine the bridge with a mind of its own and the highway department is warning drivers to beware. I could see someone driving across a bridge in the winter when the bridge decides to ice over and cars begin spinning.

In Louisiana, I saw a couple of bridges with the signs on the exit side of the bridge, as if some demented highway employee is playing a joke on drivers. The bridge ices and you start spinning. As you spin past the bridge and see the sign, you yell out, “O yeah. . .thanks. . .for the. . .warning!!!!!” But, ice on bridges when the road is clear is a very real danger. The sign is warning of a possible hazard ahead.

The Apostle Paul says, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes“ Ephesians 6:11. The devil is a liar and a deceiver. He plots and schemes ways in which to trap you in sin. The Bible warns us about the devil and his tricks. Beware, the devil has a trap ahead, around most every turn in life, just over the rise each day may be one of his tricks.

•He may trip us up, and cause us to stumble: FRESH OIL; LOOSE GRAVEL.
•He may hide behind a smoke screen of grumbling of some sort: DON’T DRIVE INTO SMOKE.
•He may change the conditions quickly to cause you to slip up: BRIDGE MAY ICE WHEN COLD.

By knowing God’s word and way, we can, with the help of God’s own Spirit, see the road signs and dangers and YIELD AND STOP, keeping us out of danger. Beware, the devil is a roaring lion looking for whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). He may be around every corner trying to snatch you away from God.

* Many small towns such as in northern Missouri pave their roads (and on some two-lane highway shoulders), tar and oil is spayed on the road surface and chat spread to cover and adhere to the tar and oil and it makes a sort of pavement type surface and until it settles in, cures or whatever the correct term is, the dust and the tar mess up your car.

(reposted from BloggingtheChurch, October 19, 2011)

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Please sign the Call for Mercy petition for Asia Bibi

Asia Bibi, was arrest and imprisoned in June 2009 in Pakistan for her Christian witness. In, November 2010, Asia was convicted of committing blasphemy against the prophet Muhammad and sentenced to death. At press time, she was still locked in an eight-by-ten prison cell near Lahore, Pakistan, awaiting the results of her appeal.

Please sign the Call for Mercy petition on her behalf (http://www.callformercy.com/). Thousands have already done so.

"Pray for us," her husband Ashiq asked. "Pray for Asia so she may soon come back home, and she can say thanks to the entire world when she comes home. Muslims say all she has to do is make a proclamation of Islam and she will be released, but she's faithful and she will never deny her faith."

(excerpted from Voice of the Martyrs newsletter, December 2011)

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So what! Since evolution is true, I know you are wrong...

Many people with the evolutionary mindset refuse to listen to any evidence presented against their position. Here are some basic truths that simply cannot be refuted, as given by Tim Stout in his pamphlet How Science Shows There MUST Be A Creator.

1. Biological chemicals fall apart much faster than they could ever spontaneously appear! This behavior is the outworking of the laws of chemical equilibrium. Therefore, for a person to believe in a natural origin of life, he needs to reject the laws of chemical equilibrium.

2. Consider the very common enzyme, succinate dehydrogenase, which is comprised of a string of over 1,100 amino acids. The probability of getting this particular amino acid sequence, by chance, are 1 in 10^1,100. (that's a 1 with 10 thousand zeros after it).  Natural selection would be useless in gradually bringing about its initial formation, because natural selection does not choose between the better of two failures. Therefore, to believe in a natural origin of life a person needs to ignore the laws of statistics.

3. A living cell is essentially an information-driven machine. must have all. All of the components of a cell must performing properly right from the very beginning, not gradually over time. Otherwise, it does not work, period, end of story. This is the exact opposite of a gradualistic evolutionary processes. Therefore, to believe in a natural origin of life, a person needs to reject basic principles of information-driven machines.

The evidence is so powerful that anyone can see it who is willing! We can present the evidence, but only God can make it take root and grow (1 Corinthians 3:7). Because of these truths, we need to be relying on God to work in the hearts of those to whom we speak, to make things clear, and not to rely on our own efforts.

(based on Timothy R. Stout, Responses to the Testimony, published in Creation Matters, a publication of Creation Research Society, Volume 16, Number 5, September/October 2011, to appear at http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/pdf/2011/CM16%2004%20low%20res.pdf)

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